The Other Woman: A novella of domestic suspense by Nenia Campbell

Author:Nenia Campbell [Campbell, Nenia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-02T06:00:00+00:00

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The store was a success. Dillon loved looking at the food. He liked squeezing the bread. He squeezed her poor loaf of sourdough so enthusiastically that Carol was tempted to put it back and get a new one. But she didn’t, because she was afraid that someone might see.

She learned that one should never park a child close to a bin of apples when she turned her back, only to see a cascade of them go rolling by in the corner of her eye, with Dillon holding one in his chubby fist. Then she tried to help pick up the avalanche of Granny Smiths dislodged by Dillon, who had apparently chosen one of the key supports for what seemed like hundreds of apples. The produce manager shooed her away, saying it happened all the time. Carol was pretty sure that was a lie, but it was a kind lie. Probably because he was a kind man, which made her feel guilty, because when she had walked in, she had thought his mustache reminded her of Hitler’s.

Not for the first time, Carol was conscious of being grateful that people couldn’t read minds. Particularly hers. Telepathy would have been the most intrusive burden. She would have to watch every single unkind thought that gravitated through her consciousness like shavings of iron to a very powerful magnet.

Telepathy had featured in Graham’s sci-fi novel, the one he had given her. She couldn’t remember the exact plot, only that some of the women had been telepaths and the men had not. It had struck Carol as very paranoid and possibly sexist. She had inferred that Graham distrusted women and spent what was probably far too much time obsessing over what women had thought about him, and then turning it into filth, like Robert Heinlein.

But now, as she thought about it, perhaps women had only been a device to explore the issue. In which case, that was yet another thought she was grateful that no one would ever see. Sometimes, she told herself, a mustache is just a mustache, and a psychic is just a psychic.

Having made her escape from the apple fiasco, Carol found herself in the frozen food aisle. Dillon was in heaven. He liked reaching for the handles of the doors on the frozen food cases, opening them and then slamming them shut. Carol bought lots of frozen pizzas remembering Melinda’s assurance that Dillon would eat them. She also tried to ignore Dillon and the doors. Other women in the frozen food aisle did not and some of them frowned at Carol, as if wondering why she wasn’t putting a stop to things. Carol ignored them, too. It was easier than she would have imagined. Perhaps Dillon, with his uncommunicativeness, was on to something.

As she shopped, she kept up a running commentary for Dillon’s benefit regarding the food she was picking out. Sometimes she read the ingredients to him, and that took up virtually all her attention and made it even easier to tune out the whispers and the glares.

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